Who Built This?

A while back, not too many years ago, a young guy in his mid-thirties came into  the store here to find out about possibly buying a new Souris River Canoe.   Being that our store is out in the woods on a beautiful lake here called Jasper, that alone is one thing of fascination for many of our store customers.   Most people on a shopping adventure end up going to the populated area and concrete jungle of Ely to wander the stores in a more civilized environment.  Our store at Northwind Lodge is not only sizeable with a great selection of products, gear and fishing tackle, but it is located almost at the end of the road, at our resort called Northwind Lodge.  We are surrounded by the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness on three sides.  But for a few gift shops and maybe a pegboard wall with some tackle on it, other resorts around the state of Minnesota usually don’t have anything quite like this.  A beautiful resort with clean, housekeeping cabins on a small lake with few people AND a store.   As a result, Red Rock attracts people to Northwind Lodge not necessarily with the intention to stay here, but they are usually a bit surprised that the resort with housekeeping cabins is here on the Fernberg road.  We usually do a lot of explaining that Red Rock and the Northwind Lodge are under the same ownership but market them separately for the very reason that people are easily overwhelmed and confused with too many bits of information all tied up in one spot.

Well, anyway, this guy wanted to test paddle a Quetico 17 because he correctly heard that as far as general purpose, Boundary Waters canoes go, nothing beats a Souris River Quetico 17 for a whole host of reasons.   Based on my own in-depth knowledge of that canoe and  other brand Kevlar canoes, he would not even need to test paddle it. The canoe is unflappable for 99% of all general, recreation-use paddlers on the planet.   But, my being in a sales position always tests many peoples’ sense of skepticism before they buy something and he needed pudding with proof in it.  So, I flipped a 43 lb., Kevlar,  Souris River Quetico 17 up on my shoulders.  While ooo & aww’ing about me picking up the canoe, he grabs the paddles and PFD’s and to the lake we head from Red Rock which is on the outer edge of the resort and about 100 yards from Jasper Creek.  It's only a minute or two to the Northwind Lodge beach.

As we are walking along, he (and almost everybody else) asks from behind me if that noise ahead of us is a waterfall to which I say “yes”.   We make it to the trail from the road edge and to the first foot bridge that leads over the creek which is moving along nicely.  In the middle of the bridge he stops behind me to look over the 15 foot wide, gurgling swath of white noise as it sparkled furiously below in the leaf-filtered sun’s rays.   There is a look of marvel in his eyes as he yells to me, while I’m now across the bridge and turning the canoe to follow the trail to the lake amid the ash trees, “ Wow! Who did this?”

I said, “Excuse me?”  I expected that I knew where this big city kid was going with this, but I’d decided to play along.  The canoe on my shoulders was pretty lightweight so I had time to engage.

“Who did you hire to do this?  The layout and design?  It’s FABULOUS!!!” he  queried all excited about how beautiful Jasper Creek is.   I thought  “Wow!”  He actually thinks we hired an architectural firm named Hanson, Rogers and Flipperding to design Jasper Creek.  Then we hired a highly respected eco-excavation company (who burns love in their fuel tanks instead of diesel) to install it with tender care just like they do at Disneyland and the tourists are all dazzled by it.

To answer him I responded with a question, sort of, “Err, God?  Mother Nature?  Bhudda?  Pick whichever one serves your belief system.”

Photo courtesy of  Hanson, Rogers and Flipperding
(Landscape Architects Extraordinaire)

Then, a slightly sheepish look came across his face as he said “Ohhhh” as he realized that most of those rocks have laid there in that water for abouty 30,000 years or longer -  whenever the last glacier left us.

And, then we continued down to the lake and he noticed the resort cabins on the hillside overlooking the beach area.   He wanted know what this place was – with the beautiful creek and rental cabins nestled in the woods.  I explained that it is our resort, Northwind Lodge and as he took it all in at the beach, you could see the processing taking place.  Then he wondered how long I’ve had this place and I replied “for about 50 years – I grew up here, pretty much.”    He shook his head in amazement and declared “what a beautiful place to grow up” it was.  I agreed.

It was then that he remembered his original purpose, and we both sat down in that canoe and shoved off the shore to take that test paddle.   When we got back to shore after about 15 minutes, he said to me, “You already knew what I was going to find when I took this canoe on the water, didn’t you?.”   I just smiled.

He loaded up a new Souris River Quetico 17 on his car and off to the great blue yonder it went with him.  Before he left, he took a picture of the waterfall at Jasper Creek like so many people have done for my whole life here at Northwind Lodge, just outside of the BWCA, near Ely.

Jasper Creek Fall at Northwind Lodge

Northwind Lodge Website Here